The clock on the dash ticked over to 8.28 pm. It had stopped raining a couple of hours ago and the stately homes of Katinga Heights were dark and quiet. All of them on the high side of the street backed onto bushland. She sat with her hands gripping the steering wheel as she peered into the night, visualising the moves she had planned.
She’d brought two short pieces of wood to prop up against either side of the back fence. They’d give her the extra height she needed to make it over—one on the outside to get into the yard, one on the inside to get back out. Inside the yard, the fence would shield her from the street and the neighbours. Then she must head for the back patio and find the spare keys from under the bricks around the water feature—Gerard had got them from there last time when they’d had a committee meeting at the house and he’d left his keys at the office. She hoped the Holts hadn’t changed their hiding place. Once inside, then…she baulked again at the thought of it—creeping around, all in black, beanie and surgical gloves, rummaging through their lives. A wave of disgust rolled over her.
She scanned the street one last time. Clear. She made it through the bush to the back fence in a barrage of barking from the dog two doors up, propped the piece of wood against the fence and used it like a ramp to jump over. No lights came on, and no one appeared to investigate, too used to the dog’s frequent alerts to pay attention. She breathed a sigh of relief. That was the most exposed part done, until she had to cross the same empty stretch on her way out.
Finding the keys was like a game of memory. She picked up almost every brick around the water feature, gradually losing hope, until she finally found them. She put on a pair of latex gloves, picked up the keys and made her way past the swimming pool to the back door.
Closing the door behind her, she shone her phone torch around a large and well-equipped entertaining area—lounge suite, gleaming silver bar fridge and floor-to-ceiling wine rack. She tiptoed out into the hallway, pushing open each door as she went. The first was a huge bedroom, a wedding photograph of Bernadette and Gerard hanging on the far wall, a large TV and an open door to an ensuite. Her eyes fell on the bedside table closest to the door. She had a sudden desire to know, justified it by pretending it was part of her search. She approached the table and ran her fingers across the items—a jewellery box, a photograph of a young man, a ceramic dish containing a pair of pearl earrings, a scarf draped across a single hardcover book titled Beautiful Boy.
She could feel the Holts’ presence. Good God—what am I doing? Snooping around their personal things—it sickened her. She backed out of the room.
She tried the next few doors. All bedrooms. She was almost all the way to the front part of the house now, where the hallway opened up into a large open-plan lounge, dining and kitchen area. She pushed on the final door. At last, the office—a large desk, sleek and black, with matching filing cabinet and swivel chair. She brushed past the potted palm near the doorway and tried the filing cabinet. Locked.
She made a start on the desk drawers. Hardly anything in the first one—pens and pencils, paperclips, and a lot of empty space. The next was filled with a neat stack of blank A4 paper. The last drawer was full of what looked like years of warranty cards and manuals, along with a fat wad of receipts held together by a large bulldog clip. She rummaged around underneath until her gloved fingers touched on a set of keys right up the back.
She tried the lock on the filing cabinet—bingo—and began shuffling through the top drawer, checking inside each file. Nothing of interest. She felt around underneath the files and to the back of the drawer. Nothing. She checked her watch. It was just past nine pm. From what Jen had said, the bank function wasn’t due to finish until ten pm at the earliest. Plenty of time if the tapes were here in the study, but not a lot if she had to go through the bedrooms or the kitchen to find them. She stepped it up a gear.
No luck with the second drawer.
As she slid open the third drawer she heard a noise—just a car driving up the street. She started checking inside the files. Nothing. She slipped her hands underneath, searching to the back of the drawer. Her gloved fingers fell onto a small cloth bag in the back left corner. She traced her fingertips along it and felt the distinctive shape of two USB sticks.
At that moment she heard footsteps at the front of the house. She stiffened, switching off the torch and standing perfectly still, ears straining, every muscle tensed. A key in the front door. Oh God. The front door opening now. She gently shut the drawer, her mind racing. Escaping down the hallway was out of the question—too visible from the front living area. She tiptoed across the carpet to a built-in cupboard on the opposite side of the room, pulled open the double doors. Inside were a row of shelves to the left, and to the right a tall, thin space with a cricket bat, two tennis rackets and an umbrella. She squeezed in, pulling the door shut behind her, barely fitting in the shallow space. The handle of the cricket bat jammed under her left butt cheek.
Had she left the back door open? She couldn’t remember. She heard high heels clacking across the tiled floor in the kitchen, a cupboard door opening. Bernadette, home early. She could scarcely breathe. She heard footsteps going past, down the hallway. She remembered her mobile phone. Had she turned it to silent? Yes, she was sure she had.
Bernadette went into one of the rooms off the hall—the main bedroom? Clementine heard a tap running, then the sound of a television. Oh Lord above, the bedrooms were between her and the back door—how was she going to get past? The front door wasn’t an option—her chances of scaling the six-foot fence without being noticed were remote and she didn’t know how to operate the automatic gates.
She carefully reached for the back pocket of her jeans, adjusting the bat handle out from underneath, and slowly pulled out her mobile phone, her hands sweaty and trembling inside the latex gloves. Yes, it was on silent. She typed in the text: Help. Trapped inside Holts place. Need u 2 distract Bernadette out front so I can get out back door.
She waited. Five minutes passed.
A text flashed up onto the screen of her mobile.
On my way. Any ideas?
It felt like an hour had passed, but the time on her phone showed 9.35 pm. Her shoulders were starting to cramp in the confined space and the air smelt like mouldy tennis balls. She’d heard a toilet flush and then the TV noise had cut out. Was Bernadette asleep perhaps? She wondered if she could risk tiptoeing past the bedroom to the back door. Yes, it might be safer than waiting for backup.
She was just about to send another text telling him not to worry when she heard it—BOOM! The whole house shook. It was like a bomb had gone off out the front of the house.
For a moment Clem was rooted to the spot, confused, then she heard the thump of bare feet running up the hallway. She pushed open the cupboard door and cautiously poked her head out into the hallway. The front door was open, and she just caught the top of Bernadette’s head bobbing down the porch stairs and out of sight.
Clementine sprinted for the back door, her heart racing. She rushed past the pool toward the back fence, scrambling over using the ramp she’d made with the second piece of wood and landing with a thud on the uneven ground in the bushland behind the yard. Nobody would be looking at the back of the house, not after whatever weapon of mass destruction Torrens had unleashed out front. She picked up the piece of wood she’d left on this side of the fence and ran for the car at the top of the hill.
It wasn’t until she arrived back at the cottage that she realised she’d dropped the cloth bag.